Tag: coercion

The Tyranny of Legislation

In a society based upon the principles of individual liberty, there is a need for only seven laws:

  1. One may not take another’s life unless one’s life or property is in imminent danger.
  2. One may not physically assault another individual unless one’s life or property is in imminent danger.
  3. No one has a right to take, use, or damage another’s property without the voluntary consent of the owner of such property.
  4. Commerce must be conducted honestly. All products and services must be represented accurately and function as described and intended.
  5. All parties who voluntarily enter into an agreement or contract are obligated to fulfill the terms of said agreement or contract.
  6. All social and economic interactions must be undertaken on a voluntary basis. No one must be coerced to engage in any social or economic activity.
  7. An individual’s personal rights must always be respected and protected. No personal, moral, societal, or other preferences supersede the rights of personal liberty.

Laws may be legitimately passed to clarify each of these seven laws. For example, laws or regulations preventing one from causing pollution may be legitimate, since pollution emanating from one individual or concern may damage the property of another. Laws that ensure commerce is conducted honestly may be legitimate, provided that such laws don’t hinder commerce or provide an advantage or penalize any party.

Any type of law not addressed by the above seven laws is probably illegitimate in a free society. These include laws in which one’s personal morality, preferences, or ideals are coercively imposed upon another. Examples of these types of illegitimate laws include laws that regulate individual behaviors that do not infringe upon the liberties of others. Sexual practices, religious preferences, economic decisions, personal moral beliefs, and lifestyle choices are areas that should not be subject to coercive legislation.

Laws should also not be passed to address the economic or social preferences of any group of individuals, regardless of how noble or useful such preferences appear. Not only do attempts to establish a “nanny state” paternalistic society inevitably fail, they also are an affront to the concept of personal liberty. One should have the freedom to make one’s own decisions, even if those decisions are bad. When government tries to act as the arbiter of “good decisions,” or attempts to protect people from the consequences of their decisions, that government creates a society of mediocrity. In such a society, the population has no personal incentive to make good decisions, since government protects them from their own failures. Conversely, and more importantly, such a society also discourages risk taking. Those who have accomplished the most throughout history have usually been those who were willing to assume the largest risk and to deviate from conventional thinking. A paternalistic nanny state merely reinforces and rewards the status quo. It actively discourages new thinking and the new ideas that fuel economic and social progress.

Attempts to create social or economic engineering solutions through the coercive power of government, besides infringing upon personal liberty, inevitably lead to unintended consequences. These so-called solutions usually involve providing an advantage or reward to a certain group, while denying the same advantages or rewards to other groups. This means that government, instead of protecting individual liberty and initiative, actively interferes with the organic growth of the economy or society by imposing its preferences for behavior or outcomes. For example, providing tax incentives to specific industries artificially inflates the value of these industries, while ignoring or penalizing industries that may actually produce more societal or economic good if left to compete in a free marketplace. This also creates an atmosphere that invites governmental corruption, as any special interest will lobby, petition, or bribe the government for special favors. When a favor is granted to any specific interest, other interests are, by definition, penalized by not being allowed to compete on the same level. Rather than competing on merit, by the strength of their own products or services and their acceptance in a free marketplace, organizations are forced, in this corrupt environment, to compete upon the basis of the clout they wield in government. There is no economic or societal advantage in using clout, rather than merit, to determine the success or failure of any undertaking.

The same argument about unintended consequences holds true to legislation that attempts to regulate personal behavior. The attempt to ban the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages failed miserably. People routinely ignored the law (leading to a breakdown in respect for government) and illegal organization sprung up and thrived in order to satisfy the demand for the now-illegal beverages. A similar situation exists in the consumption of recreational drugs. Legislation outlawing the consumption of recreational substances and the so-called “War on Drugs” did little to stifle demand for these substances. Instead, these laws caused the emergence of illegal organizations and cartels to supply the inherent demand for these substances. Since this commerce is illegal, there are no contractual controls to govern the behavior of these organizations or ways to ensure that such commerce is conducted honestly. It should come as no surprise that these illegal organizations engage in violent behavior, since their basic trade is illegal to begin with.

In order to combat the violence caused by organizations that have sprung up in response to such ill conceived laws, public law enforcement has had to become more militaristic in order to fight the violence, and more and more laws that restrict basic civil rights and liberties have been passed in order to address the problems caused by this illegal trade. For example, in order to prevent cash transactions and money laundering by drug cartels, Americans can no longer conduct any cash commerce in excess of $10,000 without notifying Federal authorities. Even if the authorities are notified, civil forfeiture laws allow government authorities to seize property if they claim to suspect such money or property was obtained through illicit drug sales. There is no need for due process before seizing a person’s property – suspicion is enough. It is up to the owner of the property to prove that their property was obtained through legitimate means. The basic concept of innocence until proven guilty, which is a cornerstone of a free society, is abandoned in order to maintain the façade of legislation initially enacted to create a socially engineered solution to a perceived problem.

There is no denying that addiction can be a tragic and debilitating experience. However, the choice to consume an addictive substance rests solely with the individual choosing to indulge in these substances. He or she should bear the brunt of those decisions, not society as a whole. The entire population should not have their behavior constrained, or liberties restricted, because a small proportion of the population fails to make good decisions. Attempts to use the coercive power of government to regulate specific behaviors not only fails to ensure good decisions by the targeted population, such legislation usually has significant negative effects on the rest of the populace.

Laws that exceed the seven listed above are fundamentally an attempt by a group of people to impose, through threat of government-enforced force or forfeiture, their will upon others. No matter how well-intentioned, laws that impose the will of one group upon another group are an assault on personal freedom. The United States was not founded upon the principle of the mediocrity of collectivism. It was founded upon the principles of individual liberty and personal initiative. We must be very vigilant when leaders or candidates propose “solutions” that exceed the scope of these seven basic laws. Although they may craft a compelling argument in favor of their solutions, these “solutions” are merely the leader or candidate’s attempt to impose his or her will on the populace. There is a term for the form of government that coercively imposes its own preferences on the population, even if the leaders are “freely” elected by the populace. That term is “dictatorship.”

 

The Nature of Rights

I had a client, who worked in the medical services field, once ask me if I thought everyone should have a right to health care.  I thought about the question for a minute, and then answered “healthcare might be a desire, it might even be a need, but it is certainly not a right.”  She was taken aback by my candor and thought that I was a heartless individual.  I was unable to convince her that “rights” had a distinct meaning – one that shouldn’t be belittled as a mere platitude.

We see the term, “rights” being used to describe anything an individual might desire, regardless of the effect that desire might have on others.  Rights are all too often viewed as mere entitlements that should be offered just because an individual desires something.  The word is becoming particularly clichéd in the political arena, in which politicians and their constituencies may argue individuals have a “right” to food, free healthcare, free birth control, or any other thing they may desire.

The promiscuous use of the term, “rights,” to describe wants, or even needs, trivializes the true nature and importance of rights to the point at which true rights are undervalued, and may even entirely disappear.  Before carelessly tossing around the term, people should really understand the characteristics and significance of rights.

Rights are actions that a person may undertake in a free society.  They are not granted by governmental entities – they exist solely because a person exists.  No overseeing authority grants rights.  They exist because of the free will granted to all by our Creator.  In a society dedicated to liberty, rights are inviolate, and can not be restricted or restrained by the coercive power of the state.  A tyrannical state is one that restricts rights of individuals by the threat of governmentally sanctioned force.  The more rights are restricted, the more tyrannical the society becomes.

Rights are inherent to each individual and are virtually limitless.  Although specific rights are codified in various national constitutions and international agreements, these codified rights are not to be viewed as limitations on rights.  The only limitation on rights in a free society is that those rights not infringe upon the rights of others.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this concept is to provide a few examples.  In the United States of America, the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.  This means that anyone may compose and disseminate their ideas.  However, freedom of the press does not mean everyone has a right to a printing press provided by the government.  Providing everyone with a free printing press would require that the government take the property and labor of one (the person building the printing press) in order to satisfy the desire of another (the person wishing to distribute their ideas).  Taking the property or labor of any individual, through any other means than a voluntary transaction, is a violation of that person’s rights.

Another example is freedom of speech.  We all have a right to express our opinions.   However, this right does not allow us to force anyone to listen to our opinions.  That would be a violation of the other person’s right to freely engage in the actions he or she desires.

A third example would be the right to bear arms.  In a free society, everyone has the right to obtain and use firearms.  However, no one is under the obligation to provide the citizenry with firearms.  This right can only be exercised through a fair and voluntary transaction between the purchaser and purveyor of such weapons.

The right to bear arms also does not guarantee that anyone can use weapons in any way they desire.  For example, the right to bear a firearm does not grant an individual the right to fire that weapon at another, since the victim would obviously have his or her right to life violated by this action.

In essence, rights are the God-given abilities to take whatever actions an individual chooses, provided that those actions do not infringe upon another individual’s ability to do the same.

As illustrated above, rights are not merely desires, wants, or even needs.  They are fundamental actions an individual may take, on their own accord, and through the use of their own resources and labor.  They are not actions that infringe upon another individual’s ability to take the actions dictated by their own specific consciences.

We are hearing a lot of talk about “rights” that are anything but.  For example, many in society are touting the “right to healthcare.”  While anyone has the right to seek healthcare, no one has the “right” to receive healthcare.  If we grant individuals the “right” to healthcare, we are, by definition, denying rights to those who may provide healthcare services or be forced to fund the healthcare services of others.  Healthcare, like any other endeavor, should only be provided through a voluntary and free agreement between the consumer and the healthcare provider.  Once we start, incorrectly, identifying the receipt of healthcare as a right, we are limiting the ability of healthcare providers to freely undertake the actions they desire.

A bunch of other things are being touted as “rights” by politicians, the media, and segments of the population.  Birth control, reproductive services, food, shelter, education, and a whole host of other things are being held up as “rights.”  While no government edict should be instituted to prohibit people from seeking these things, any attempt at using the coercive power of government to ensure the receipt of these things is an affront to liberty.  People have the right to seek out any good or service they may desire, they have the right to their thoughts and consciences, and they have the right to worship in any way they please.  They do not have the right to compel others to provide these things to them, nor do they have the right to use their “rights” to infringe upon the rights of others.

Governments may institute laws to protect rights, but these protections should be limited to preventing individuals and entities from infringing upon the rights of others.  Governments should not be in the business of granting or providing rights.  Rights are granted, not by governments, but by God.  But the ultimate responsibility for exercising those rights is borne solely by each individual.  If “rights” must be provided by another individual or entity (such as a government), they are not rights.  In fact, they are the direct opposite of rights, since they involve the coercion of one group of individuals in order to satisfy the desires of another group of individuals.  Rights are granted to individuals alone, and may only be exercised by those same individuals.  Any other use of the term, “rights,” perverts the true significance of this cornerstone of liberty.